Deitch: Phillies hurting their future by reporting players to NCAA

Oregon State’s Ben Wetzler pitches against Kansas State during the first inning of an NCAA super regional tournament game last season. A Baseball America report said Wetzler is under investigation after the Phillies, who picked Wetzler in the fifth round of the draft, reported him for having an agent after he decided to return to school. (Associated Press)

CLEARWATER, Fla. — It is one thing to be of an old-school thinking in baseball, reluctant to accept the modern way of making decisions through analytics. It is one thing to have a general manager who is considered smug in many circles. It is one thing to decide to go all-in with aging veterans in an attempt to rediscover greatness.

It is entirely another thing to alienate every agent and create reason for countless potential draft picks to question how you’re going to treat them if you don’t get your way.

There is having an opinion, and then there is burning bridges. And a story unearthed by Baseball America late Wednesday might not have gotten the biggest national headlines, but when it comes to the Phillies, this has a chance to be a ground-shaking development that scars the franchise for a long while — if it isn’t dealt with quickly and severely.

The story revealed that the NCAA is doing an investigation on Oregon State pitcher Ben Wetzler for hiring an agent, which is a violation of eligibility rules — although almost every drafted junior in college has a “representative” who essentially is an agent whose contract with said player doesn’t become formal until after the player signs.

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It wouldn’t be a big deal except, according to the report, someone in the Phillies organization was responsible for turning in information on Wetzler, who happened to be their fifth-round pick last June and turned down their $400,000 offer.

If it had been an isolated incident, perhaps there could be a legitimate reason behind this stunt. The problem is, Wetzler wasn’t the only player investigated thanks to the Phillies’ snitching. Sixth-round pick Jason Monda, a Washington State pitcher, has started his senior season, but only because he was cleared of any improprieties by the NCAA before games started. Monda’s father, Greg, actually played in the Phillies’ organization for a half-season in 1988.

When the Phillies announced the signing of first-round pick J.P. Crawford last June, scouting director Marti Wolever mentioned that Monda was returning to school, telling reporters, “He agreed to the draft and then just changed his mind.” Monda had received an offer of $200,000 and the payment of his further college tuition.

The Phillies haven’t had the best offseason from a PR standpoint, but most of that has involved turning Citizens Bank Park into Jurassic Park by signing players with stats dating back to the Paleolithic League to multi-year deals.

But this storm that’s brewing is uglier. Agents already are declaring they will keep the Phillies from knowing the intentions of their draft-eligible players — and an organization without insight into the “signability” of players is like a pitcher trying to throw after having the index finger on his throwing hand amputated.

So far the Phillies have been mum on this report, and that cannot remain the case. Ruben Amaro Jr. deferred to Wolever, and Wolever isn’t talking. If this was a tactic that the organization made after full consultation, then the Phillies have had their reputation badly scarred. If this was someone in the front office or even below going rogue and doing this without consultation with Amaro, then that person needs to be fired — immediately.

The Phillies have had a pretty rough recent history in the draft. Actually, last June’s picks have been considered one of the better hauls, even without Monda and Wetzler on board. But on the whole, the departure of Mike Arbuckle to Kansas City in 2008 put an already slumping scouting department into a hard slide.

The baseball draft has become all the more essential to the success of the big-league team in recent years. The Braves have revealed a hyper-aggressive approach to this in the last couple of seasons, as they have been gobbling up years of tendered contracts and arbitration cases by signing young players like Julio Teheran, Freddie Freeman and Andrelton Simmons to long-term and reasonably priced contracts.

But in order to do that and have young stars at comparatively low starting salaries when they are in their prime 27-to-30-year-old stage, you have to have young stars.

Doing a substandard job gauging talent is one thing. Alienating the people with whom you interact so as to sign that talent is another thing — a truly catastrophic thing.

The clock is ticking loudly for the Phillies to come up with a solution to this potential disaster.